Claim edit: Phone numbers with invalid area or exchange codes

Stedi now rejects 837P professional, 837D dental, and 837I institutional claims that contain a phone number with an invalid area code or exchange code.

How the edit works

X12 standards require claims to include 10-digit telephone numbers for entities like the submitter and billing provider.

To be valid, a phone number’s area code (first 3 digits) and exchange code (next 3 digits) can't begin with 0 or 1. If they do, the payer may reject the claim.

This edit catches the issue before the claim reaches the payer. It prevents payer rejections, which are slower and delay payment for the provider.

Rejection errors

If you submit a claim using Stedi's Claim Submission API endpoints and the claim fails the edit, you'll get back an error response in real time. The response includes details in the errors array:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": "33",
      "description": "Invalid Telephone number. The submitted telephone number, 0125550100, for Billing Provider is not a valid number. Area codes and phone numbers must not begin with 0 or 1. Correct and resubmit.",
      "followupAction": "Please Correct and Resubmit"
    }
  ]
}

If you submit a claim using SFTP and the claim fails the edit, Stedi will reject the claim with a 277CA claim acknowledgment. The acknowledgment will include a related claim status category code, claim status code, entity identifier code, and error message:

STC*A7>127>85*[DATE]*U*[AMOUNT]********Invalid Telephone number. The submitted telephone number, 0125550100, for Billing Provider is not a valid number. Area codes and phone numbers must not begin with 0 or 1. Correct and resubmit.~